Cheerfulness at a Time Like This?

 What is Being Cheerful All About?

 
Early American author William Fender is credited with the quote “Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious,” however, I think he is missing the point.

When I was in the first grade our music teacher, Mrs. Holbrook, taught us some songs that we presented one night to our parents.  One song was called” Good Morning Merry Sunshine”.  It went like this:

“Good morning merry sunshine, how did you wake so soon?  You scared the little stars away and shined away the moon.  I saw you to go to sleep last night before I ceased my playing.  How did you get way over there and where have you been staying?”
 
My father must have like the song because he proceeded to wake my brother and me up every morning for several years singing it at the top of his lungs.  While his early morning cheerfulness felt obnoxious at the time, it did teach a powerful lesson for starting the day with cheerfulness.
 
Just like you have to decide to be courageous, you have to decide to be cheerful too.  Do you think my dad felt cheerful every morning as he sang that song?  Of course not!  But I have learned that cheerfulness is contagious.  At several places where I have been employed I have been known to walk the halls singing the song made famous by Fred Rodgers of “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood” that goes “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood…” for the purpose of raising the spirit of my team.  They would at first look at me as if I was nuts but in a few moments their cheerful meters were pegging higher.

Author Joseph Addison puts it this way. ”Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body."  That is what being cheerful is all about.

 

"Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind."  Aristotle